A Few Things

I've just got a few things to share this week starting with my STRONG desire to see the end of this winter! REALLY tired of the cold and wet. *sigh* Ok, enough complaining.

We're spending this weekend putting up crown molding in the kitchen as the painters will hopefully be starting next week.

I decided on the Pumice color (middle color) from Miller Paint for the walls.

The trim will be Patti's Pearl (top row second from the left) also from Miller Paint.

Last weekend we made our annual winter trip to Astoria, Oregon for the Festival of the Dark Arts. As usual, it did not disappoint.

There were plenty of people in costume, some really good ones too!

There was also some nice art including this ice sculpture.

The beer, of course, was awesome if you didn't mind being served by ghouls! Next year, we plan on going after 6 pm however, as the crowds seem to really thin out. It's really crowded right when they open at 2.

On our trip home we saw this herd of elk by the roadway. We scared them off when we stopped to take photos though.

Monday is 'Pizza Day' around here and we usually (just about always) make a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. This week for a change we really mixed it up and made this goat cheese, pear, and caramelized onion pizza. I used my homemade pizza dough recipe and added a little arugula as well. It was a big hit and will definitely get some more playing time!

I finally broke down and bought a Pressure Cooker this week. I've had it on my Amazon Wish List for years but never pulled the plug on it. Now, I'm really excited to try this recipe as well as cook dried beans in 45 minutes! CRAZY!

I've been using my new Honey Hopped Soap lately and am loving it! I'm so happy with the scent, the cassia essential oil really held through the soap making process and smells wonderful. Pick up a few bars while they last!

Kitchen Change Of Mind

It's been over three months since I shared my thoughts on doing a small kitchen overhaul. I haven't forgot about it, I've just been stewing over it and I'm glad I did!

I began my kitchen overhaul over a year ago in my head. I thought I'd redo my counter tops, put in a tile back splash and repaint. However, when I verbalized my ideas Jeff pointed out the obvious, that my counter tops were perfectly fine and I just put in a kitchen floor that matched them. I then decided I'd repaint and add some wallpaper to one wall. I'm usually not a fan of wallpaper but there are some real interesting ones now that don't even look like wallpaper.

That's where I left it back in October, I was working up the energy to tackle wallpapering and painting. Then I started looking at Pinterest again...and, well, I've changed my mind a little.

I'm not going to wallpaper and I'm not going to paint. Maybe I should say, I'm not going to wallpaper and someone else is going to paint because that's really what I mean.

Painting the kitchen at my house isn't a big deal but you can't just paint the kitchen. There's a curved wall from the kitchen to the hallway so you need to paint the hallway too and there are SEVEN doors in the hallway! That's why I needed to work up the energy for three months!

When I've painted in there before I've been lazy and just painted all the woodwork and walls and ceiling the same color to avoid cutting in. I didn't want to do that this time; I wanted it to look a little more...professional.

So Tuesday I had two painters come over to work up bids to paint the kitchen and hallway.

Because of my travels through Pinterest I decided I'm going to add some crown molding above and on the kitchen soffit so it's not such an eyesore, similar to this. We're going to do that work ourself as Jeff has a table saw and I have my dad's nail gun and power tools are better than paint brushes!

I've also changed my mind on the colors. I'm going to paint the walls a light greige (Thank you Pinterest! I never even knew that was a color let alone a word before!) and the ceiling and woodwork white. Similar to this.

This color will bring out the gray in my cabinets without washing them out and still be neutral enough to not fight the yellow floor and the brick red counter tops. Well, that's the hope at least.

Here's what the final color scheme will be (roughly, the greige will be a little more grey than beige).

Ironically and completely unplanned, it's almost the same colors as Ed and Olive! DOH!

So, that's where I'm leaving it for now, we've got to install some molding and schedule the painters. Suddenly, this feels a lot more doable in my mind.

Closet, Organized!

My son has a lot of clothes. He swears he wears them all but I have my doubts. Regardless, he has a pretty small closet so I got the great idea to help him organize it! He was thrilled (not really)!

Here's what we started with.

At one point, in an effort to organize the closet, I picked up these metal racks for his shoes at Ikea.  When your shoes are a size 12 they probably aren't worth installing since only 5 pair fit on them.

This time we were going to do better! I ordered this closet organizer from Amazon.



It sat in the basement for a few weeks before we got the courage and time to tackle installing it. Last Saturday we finally blocked out a few hours and did it! *Worth it*

To begin with, we removed everything from the closet including the metal Ikea racks.

No, we didn't paint the closet and no we didn't even patch any screw holes. It's a closet and it will be packed with clothes so *not worth it*.

We then followed the instructions (yes, you read that right, we followed the instructions) and put the tower together first. Once together, we secured the tower to the wall with the L-brackets that came in the box.

Next we installed the rods. The kit comes with three rods so we put two to the right of the tower and one to the left.

Lastly, we put the clothes back in!

The new arrangement now holds all his clothing. Before, his jeans were thrown on the couch. If you scroll to the before pictures you'll notice there are no jeans in the picture.

Every now and then I peak into his room just to look at the beauty of an organized (although crammed) closet!

This little project took Alec and I about 3 hours start to finish and that included a break to call a plumber because the shower backed up (another story).

Moral of this story: If you've got a closet that needs some TLC, I'd recommend setting aside a few hours and installing this organizer!

Facebook Store Opened For Business!

For all those Facebook users out there, Lora's Beauty's Facebook store is now opened for business!

All the great products and prices you see on Lora's Beauty website are now available on Facebook including the new Honey Hopped Goats' Milk Soap.

While you're there (and logged in, this is Facebook), go ahead and give us a 'like'!

If you don't have a Facebook account, don't worry, continue to use the website. Facebook users will be directed to the website for checkout as well.

Lora's Beauty, an affordable luxury and now on Facebook!